West Somerset Railway General Discussion

In fairness to those who felt that something - and someone to whom the railway had to listen - had eventually arrived, I suspect they had watched their railway stagger from one crisis to the next and felt that enough was enough!

 

Yes, me as well. We have a caravan booked for a week. Perhaps we’ll go anyway and enjoy the other delights of West Somerset in March Any (polite) suggestions welcome.

 

From reading the chairmans statement:- "On Friday evening it was confirmed that although the WSR PLC had satisfied the ORR through a successful audit, it was confirmed that we must put in place a recovery plan which must be achieved. There will be a strict path for the WSR to take forward and we must ensure that through every department we now deliver and do not fall back into bad practices"

I don't know, it is pure speculation but it sounds from the statement as if they could have been issued with an 'improvement notice' which is a legal document on things that have to be improved and which the ORR come back and inspect so rather than being closed down you are given a short period to correct any issues before they recheck again, usually paperwork that needs improving /is missing or perhaps practices they want changing. I don't want to elaborate but the Swindon and Cricklade had to go through such a process in recent times. It can even be simple stuff like, Have volunteers who have to walk along the track done a track safety test ? and is there paperwork to show they have been tested within the last 3 years.

 

Actually, I was thinking more of normal operation, for exactly the reason in the second snippet. But I see from Andy Norman's follow-on post that there wouldn't actually be much of that. Well, I hope the WSR manages to get the issues sorted...

Noel

 

Well theres always Hinkley Point to look at, watch it glow at dusk, then theres…...mmmm

 

The East Somerset Railway at Cranmore hold their steam gala the same weekend.

https://eastsomersetrailway.com/events/view/steam-gala

 

Is the Bakelite Museum at Williton open in the winter?

 

This sounds more serious than issues. This sounds like problems.

 

Thank you for that info. I have to go to somerset in March, so that gala will do nicely.

 

I would be pretty sure that you are correct that an Improvement Notice has been issued - this has always seemed the likely underlying procedural position.

The quote seems to confirm this - where is this quote from? It isn't on the link to Steve Edge's site.

Many thanks

Steven

 

It was in this statement Steven

 

Many thanks - I realise I had seen that and not appreciated the strong implication that @toplight has picked up!

Steven

 

Thank you. Haven’t been to an operating day at the ESR for many a year.

 

Where though is the ORR document?

 

Worth bearing in mind this was only "leaked" yesterday, and subsequently appeared on Steve Edge's site. In any ordinary world the public ORR letter would be the first us normals would hear of such a thing.

 

Well there is https://www.hestercombe.com/ also https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/dunster-castle

 

Thanks. We’ve been to Dunster Castle a few times as we’re NT members but Hestercombe may be worth a visit.

 

I'd be very surprised if somebody (insert name of suspect) hasn't briefed them already.

Stef.

 

If the Lynton & Barnstaple line is operational on the dates your are in that part of the world then a visit there would be a choice. There are other lines but of course some distance away.
http://www.lynton-rail.co.uk/
PS: Spotted an earlier reference to the East Somerset. That makes good sense.

 

As somebody who has done them Auditors can usually dig deep enough to find non compliance’s in any organization they inspect, nobody or anything is perfect in our world. The ORR would be auditing a defined SMS flowchart the more non compliance’s or holes they uncover especially at the top of the system the harsher any improvement notice they serve will be. For example, One person escaping the net as regards records should not condemn the entire system or organization, an entire area of paperwork and records missing might well raise eyebrows and deeper questions and subsequent areas to be improved on by a certain date. Regrettable and embarrassing for the railways management but the fact a stop order was not put in place suggests it’s a process and procedure not issues with actual work at the coal face that was found.
For example, You might well be testing your brakes at the coal face but are you recording the results against your specifications in your VMI, is the VMI itself appropriate to your needs and not just a copy of BR, who is doing the test, what engineering background do they have to do the to do the tests, what does the SMS say about this and so on. Not a five minute job just to go through the systems and the WSR is a lot larger in all areas than a say a smaller 5mile line with less than half a dozen Locos carriages etc.

As a shareholder I would hope to receive some sort of communication on this but with the WSR boards record on communication I am not holding my breath.

Brian